rufflesfandomcom-20200213-history
Victory Project
The so-called "Victory Project" is an ongoing development program by the United States of America, primarily aimed at the creation and application of advanced new military technologies to ensure a continued military edge over the British and the Russians (as well as, potentially, any other country the U.S. might have to fight). The Victory Project began as an innitiatve to develop practical and militarily-useful ballistic missiles (i.e. a similar program to the V-1 & V-2 weapons fielded by Nazi Germany in the Second World War). The innitiative was expanded under President Clariston with the creation of the "Victory Commission": a panel of the country's brightest scientific and military minds. Under the Clariston Administration, several existing programs were given new "V names" and rolled under the umbrella of the Victory Commission, while additional programs were added to the repertoire. Victory Project Often called the "Valentine Project" to dinstinguish it from the larger Victory Project program, the original Victory Project was concerned with the development of missile- and rocket-based weaponry. The name "Valentine" comes from the fact that the first successful American missiles, the SSM-G-9 "Hermes", were successfully fired in 1958 at the fortified Russian port city of Vladivostok from launch sights on the coast of Washington State, near Seattle - a range of over 7500 kilometers, or close to 5000 miles. "Victory Attacks" against Russia's eastern coast, and even against Imperial positions in the Alaska Colony to support American war efforts there, have continued to the present with unflinching regularity. Early systems like the Hermes used primitive gyroscope or radio-based guidance systems. However, the newest generation of American long-range ballistic / cruise missiles - and the first to see truly mass-scale production - employ radar guidance systems. American ballistic missiles became the first known human artifacts to enter Outer Space. Modern Victory Missile systems: *SSM-A-16 "Vlad the Impaler" - massive, long-range, 4-stage ballistic missile capable of putting a payload of 10 tonnes of explosives into Low Earth Orbit. The exact range of the weapon system is unknown, although it is most certainly capable of hitting targets in Europe. However, Moscow and Petrograd - the two main cities of the Russian Empire - are out of range of either coast of the U.S. Mainland. *SSM-A-18 / SSM-N-16 "Venerator" - smaller 3-stage missile developed from the SSM-A-16 and capable of being launched from an aircraft carrier. The carrier-launched version, SSM-N-16, is under development to be fired from a United States- or Forrestal-class carriers. Has a payload of 2.5 metric tonnes high-explosive. *SSM-A-24 / SSM-N-24 "Vicksburg" - single-stage supersonic tactical ballistic missile capable of being fired from a mobile launch vehicle. Has seen only limited service thus far. Uses a simple inertial guidance system and has an effective range of approximately 150km with a 1 metric tonne / 2205 lb high-explosive warhead. However, the Circular Error Propable is 2-3km, making it a rather inaccurate weapon. *MIM-A-30 / MIM-N-30 "Vexilloid" - medium range semi-active radar homing surface-to-air missile capable of being fired from a mobile launch platform. Has an effective range of about 75km, a 54 kg / 119 lb warhead and a top speed of mach 2: far faster than any piston engine aircraft could ever hope to achieve. Batteries of stationary Vexilloid launchers are in the process of being integrated into American anti-aircraft defensive networks and have begun to see limited deployment in Alaska. A defensive launcher station for warships is also under development. Submarines *Velvetfish-class Submarine - an expirimental submarine under development in the United States. The Velvetfish is, or rather would be, a very large, long-range high-speed submarine intended for long-term independent operations. It has a specialized air-independent propulsion system using a compound of hydrogen peroxide as fuel, allowing it to run continuously underwater with no need for oxygen. However, the fuel - dubbed "perhydrol" by its U.S. designers - burns up extremely quickly, making it inefficient as a primary propulsion mechanism. Instead, the Velvetfish is run primarily using a combination of diesel engines and betteries, as on a conventional submarine. The "priority" of this arrangement is, however, reversed: instead of using the batteries for short-term underwater operations and running the rest of the time on the surface using the engines, the submarine runs entirely off its batteries. The diesel powerplant is used soley to charge the batteries, which requires only a couple of hours of time on the surface. The rest of the time, the Velvetfish can operate submerged at low, electrically-powered speeds and turn on its powerful perhydrol systems during attacks. Several developments from the Velvetfish project were employed in the so-called GUPPY project, a modernization program to improve the submerged speed, endurance and maneuverability of existing U.S. Submarine designs. The GUPPY project has been completed, although development of the Velvetfish-class itself remains problematic (if progressing slowly). All of the American Navy's several hundred existing submarines have been retrofitted, greatly improving their effectiveness and extending their service life.